VRayPhysicalCamera also provides the settings for vignetting, very handy even if it will be finely tuned during post production. While playing with exposure, we may continue with a more photographic approach, and change the white balance. When doing night photography, playing with WB can give nice, rich colors in seemingly plain light (Fig.10). I took these photos using Shaded / Cloudy settings, and tried to achieve some of that look in the scene, even if it was a starting to look bit too warm.

Fig.10

To illuminate the fog a bit, we need more light - we need the aforementioned ambient light. But we are not going to use the Ambient setting, nor will we use a Skylight solution. Sky will be handled by a big Vray Light above the whole scene, colored teal (Fig.11), and one smaller Vray Light, angled slightly towards the camera, placed just above the roof. Moonlight will be done using a standard Max Directional light, placed above the camera. Because I don't want the front facing walls to be lit too much, I built a simple shadow-caster object, simulating the other side of the street (Fig.12). For placing such lights, where shadow is even more important than the light, it's good to use viewport shadows display. I use it for almost all lights in the scene, but it really works well with one or two as with any more they tend to cancel each other out.

Fig.11

Fig.12

I didn't want any direct light on the front facing walls, but I wanted to suggest some world off screen. I used three Omni lights, projecting a quickly stitched image of tree branches, to simulate some streetlights hidden behind the trees (Fig.13).

Fig.13

At this stage with the main light sources in place, I took the low quality rendering into Photoshop, and started tweaking a bit. I quickly confirmed that most of the colors were way too saturated, producing an image that was way too warm. Quick try with Adjustment Layers provided the direction I should try (Fig.14). I also noticed that the side walls could use some specularity to accentuate the damp feeling and that there was no nice main specular on the street...